I cannot decipher the look in his face either. There is nothing sappy about it, as in the conventional sweet-faced images of Christ, sort of glowing from within, looking as if he were about to weep. This look is stern, reserved, challenging. There is recognition in it, and expectation. He seems to say, "I know you, what you are." Every time I glance up from my work—or whatever I’m doing to avoid my work—his eyes meet mine.

Sometimes I think of the line from Psalm 39: "Turn your gaze from me, that I may be glad again, before I go my way and am no more." I could remove it, of course. But he would be more present in his absence, at least at first. No doubt I would get used to the blank wall. But there would be missing in my life one small thing that reminds me of who I am and who I belong to.

That is one function of faces. Other people’s faces serve as mirrors, showing us who we are. In one sense, this is the point of the Incarnation, the central doctrine of our faith. Neither God the Father nor the Holy Spirit can be said to "have a face." In that wonderful story from Exodus, God covers Moses’ eyes, then takes away his hand and allows Moses to view his "backside" as he passes by. But no one can look upon God’s face and live. In Jesus of Nazareth, the God of Sinai, the God of thunders and lightning, the God of the earthquake, the smoke, and the ravening fire, takes on a human face with which he can look at us and we at him. What we read there will always be a mystery. But it puts us in mind of who we are and to whom we belong.

The other day I came across a short story that illustrates this idea so clearly that, as soon as I read it, I knew I had to use it. The story is called "The Father." It was written in Norwegian by Bjornstjerne Bjornson, who died in 1910. It was one of a series of what he called "peasant tales’—brief, realistic stories about rural life in Norway. For us it’s a pointed modern parable about the meaning of life.

The most powerful man in the parish, of whom this story tells, was called Thord Oversas. One day he stood in the priest’s study, tall and serious.

"I have got a son," he said. "And I want him baptized."

"What is he to be called?"

"Finn, after my father."

"And the godparents?"

Their names were named; they were the best men and women of the village belonging to the man’s family.

"Is there anything else?" asked the priest. He looked up.

The peasant stood for a while. "I would like to have him baptized on his own," he said.

"That means on a weekday?"

"On Saturday next, 12 noon."

"Is there anything else?" asked the priest.

"There is nothing else." The peasant twisted his cap as though about to go.

Then the priest rose. "Just this," he said and went over to Thord, took his hand and looked him straight in the eyes. "May God grant that the child will be a blessing to you!"

Sixteen years after that day Thord stood in the room of the priest.

"You are looking well, Thord," said the priest. He saw no change in him.

"I have no worries," answered Thord.

To this the priest was silent; but a moment later he asked: "What is your errand this evening?"

"I come this evening about my son who is to be confirmed tomorrow."

"He is a clever lad."

"I did not want to pay the priest until I’d heard what place he had been given in the ceremony."

"He is in first place."

"I am glad to hear it—and here is ten daler for the priest."

"Is there anything else?" asked the priest. He looked at Thord.

"There is nothing else." Thord left.

A further eight years passed, and then a commotion was heard outside the priest’s study. For many men had come, with Thord at the head. The priest looked up and recognized him.

"You come with many men this evening."

"I want to ask for the marriage banns to be called for my son. He is to marry Karen Storliden, daughter of Gudmund, who is standing here."

"She is the richest girl in the parish."

"What you say is right," answered the peasant. He brushed his hair back with one hand. The priest sat a while as though in thought. He said nothing, but entered the names in his books, and the men signed. Thord placed three daler on the table.

"I only want one," said the priest.

"I know. But he is my only child. I wanted to do well by him."

The priest accepted the money. "This is the third time you stand here on your son’s behalf, Thord."

"But this marks the finish," said Thord. He folded his pocketbook, said farewell and left. The men followed slowly.

Fourteen days after that day, father and son were rowing across the water in calm weather to Storliden to discuss the wedding.

"This boat seat is not very secure under me," the son said, and he stood up to put it right. That same moment the floorboard he was standing on gave way; he threw up his arms, uttered a cry and fell into the water.

"Catch hold of the oar!" shouted the father. He stood up and held it out. But after the son had swum a few strokes, he got a cramp.

"Wait!" cried the father, and began rowing. But then the son rolled over on his back, looked long at his father, and sank.

Thord could not rightly believe it. He held the boat steady and stared at the spot where his son had gone down, as though he might come up again. A few bubbles rose, then more, then one single big one which burst—then the lake lay once again as smooth as a mirror.

For three days and three nights people watched the father row around that spot without food and without sleep. He was dragging for his son. And on the morning of the third day he found him; and he went and carried him up the hill to his homestead.

A year or so might have passed following that day. Then late one autumn evening the priest heard a rattling at the door in the entrance, a cautious fumbling at the latch. The priest opened the door and in stepped a tall bent man, lean and white of hair. The priest looked long at him before he recognized him. It was Thord.

"You come late," said the priest and stood quietly before him.

"Ah, yes! I come late," said Thord. He sat down. The priest also sat down, as though waiting. There was a long silence.

Then Thord said, "I have something here I would like to give to the poor." He rose, placed money on the table, and sat down again. The priest counted it.

"This is a lot of money," he said.

"It is half of my farm. I sold it today."

The priest remained sitting a long time in silence. At length he asked gently: "What will you do now?"

"Some better thing."

They sat there a while, Thord with his eyes on the floor, the priest with his eyes on him. Then the priest said, slowly and quietly: "Now I think your son has finally been a blessing to you."

"Yes, now I think so too," said Thord. He looked up, and two tears ran sadly down his face.

This is a tragic tale of love, death, and loss. It vividly illustrates the painful ambiguities of human relationships. When Thord’s beloved son, about to drown, finally looks at him, what does Thord see? The text says simply, "The son rolled over on his back, looked long at his father, and sank." I think Thord sees mirrored in his son’s face his own bewilderment and a terrible judgment on his life—a judgment so terrible that it takes him a whole year to come to terms with it. Thord sees mirrored there, in a powerful, harsh, and unforgiving light, his own self-centeredness, his complacency, and his worldliness. He sees the sinfulness of a lifelong effort to use another person as a tool to bolster one’s own self-esteem. He sees the utter foolishness of trying to buy God’s favor, to erect a barrier of money around the vulnerability of human existence. In short, the son is a sacrifice to the deep wrongness of Thord’s life.

Thord sees all this—and much more—in his son’s face. It is a bitter lesson, yet it brings with it a blessing. The son’s death not only condemns Thord’s life. It transforms it. A year later—bent, lean and white of hair—Thord reappears at the priest’s house, having sold his farm, the center and source of prestige in his community, and gives half his worldly treasure for the poor. He will do "some better thing" with his life. In this way, says the priest, Thord’s son has finally been a blessing to him. Thord agrees, with tears running down his face. It is a bitter blessing.

Bjornson never mentions God or Christ in this story, but it could hardly be more Christian in its values. It is Christ who looks at Thord through the eyes of his son. Christ is the judgmental and redeeming presence that transforms his life. We can say that Christ is in whoever looks at us so as to force a change in our lives for "some better thing"—toward lives that are somehow larger, wider, deeper, richer, more forgiving, more oriented toward others. Such a life will not necessarily be more pleasant or more comfortable. It will almost certainly not be the larger life we would have planned, had we been asked. Christ is in whoever looks at us in such a way as to show us ourselves—as we are and as we might become.

Very likely we could all illustrate this idea from our own lives. Transformation experiences don’t have to be sudden and dramatic; they can be quite ordinary and everyday. I’m thinking of Josh, a senior who was my student this year. Josh is tall and slim, lightly built, with long straight blond hair, which he had to comb back with his hands every few minutes. His hair was so long and thick that he could let it fall forward and cover his face entirely. He could hide behind it. Once while teaching I addressed a question to what I thought for a moment was the back of his head.

Despite Joshua’s name—the English for Y’shua, the name of Jesus—I was not expecting the face of Our Lord to look out at me from behind that veil of long blond hair. But that is what happened. One day he lingered after class and asked if we could talk. Now Josh was not my best student, but he was probably the most thoughtful. He was not interested in tucking away bits of knowledge for the exam, just to impress his teachers. But he was a thinker. When he found something in our reading that touched him closely, he seized upon it, opened the curtain, and said what he thought.

As we talked—or rather as I listened—I realized that Josh was suffering from what might be called philosophical distress. He was caught in an ideological bind common among young people today who have just begun thinking for themselves. It consisted mostly of old-fashioned 19^th-century materialism, the scientific attitude which holds that nothing is real except molecules bouncing around like frenzied billiard balls. A sense of complete determinism goes with this attitude. Josh claimed, for example, that if we had a computer large enough and fast enough, it could be programmed to predict every event that has taken place in the universe from the beginning of time. Combined with this was a kind of radical reductionism. All spiritual motives, in his view, were reduced to electrochemical events in the brain. There is no such thing as love, or loyalty, or gratitude. There are no altruistic motives; generosity or compassion, under the surface, are really self-serving urges. There is no free will, only the illusion of it, and there is certainly no such thing as God.

As I say, these are not uncommon views. I had heard them before, and even had to cope with them myself. Many people, raised in our modern atmosphere of secularism and scientific materialism, would hear this argument, nod in agreement, and go on with their lives. But Josh took it seriously. He was genuinely oppressed by this view of the world, which he saw no way to refute. He felt it with pain and perplexity. He was asking me, where in such a world is the possibility of faith? What is there to believe in that doesn’t prove a lie? If nothing exists but matter in motion, and human consciousness is only an accident, a freak of nature, like froth floating at random on a cosmic sea, why continue to live?

Now, there is a question that goes to the heart of the matter! Hearing this and seeing the pain in his face, I thought, "David, this is it!" I said something like "Lord, help me" under my breath, and paid the closest attention I have ever paid in my life. We talked through lunch and through Josh’s next class. I did my best to hear and answer him. I don’t think we solved the problem; at least there was no clear break-through, no sigh of relief. But we settled something by talking it through. When he left I felt fairly sure I would not hear a revolver going off just outside the door.

I came home that day deeply impressed by several things. Josh’s honesty and seriousness, for one. The continuing profundity and mystery of life, for another. Perhaps most of all—and this is the point—by a sense of my own inadequacy to help him. I found I did not have the philosophical expertise to state persuasively my own reasons for not shooting myself. I did not have command of a language in which to say that to Josh. The Bible gives believers a vocabulary for talking about salvation, damnation, and the meaning of life. But how do you use those words to talk to someone who doesn’t, shall we say, "speak Christian"?

So this is how Josh transformed my life that day. After listening to him, I came home knowing I had to learn to talk about spiritual matters with people outside the church community. I began reading in existential philosophy—in particular, Kierkegaard and Buber and William James and their interpreters. Once past Plato and a little Aristotle in college, I never read philosophy seriously. But I am finding in books like William Barrett’s Irrational Man and The Illusion of Technique and Ernest Becher’s The Denial of Death a mind- and soul-stretching experience. I am being made to grow.

And I have learned a lot. From a two-months expedition into the deserts of modern philosophy, I stand here to tell you that it’s not at all a waste of atheism and despair out there. Perhaps many of you have known that all along. I am still thrilled by the discovery.

Of these books, the most relevant for our weekend is I-Thou, by Martin Buber, a Jewish mystic and thinker who set out to find the dimension of holiness in human relations. Buber’s basic idea is that we have two ways of relating to the world. One way is what he calls the "I-It" relationship, through which we have knowledge of objects. Looking at something as an "It" means holding the object at arm’s length, detaching oneself from it in order to examine, analyze, or manipulate it in a cool, dispassionate, objective way. This way of knowing implies a distance between the observer and the object. It is the method of science.

The "I-Thou" relationship, on the other hand, implies closeness and participation. This is the way we know people. The "I" and the "Thou" face each other as whole persons, neither submitting to the other to be manipulated or used. One whole faces another, and from their wholeness together emerges holiness. The "I-Thou" relationship is like love. It implies responsibility and involvement. Think of Jesus facing the Rich Young Man, who has asked him, "What must I do to be saved?" Jesus says, "You know the commandments." When the young man says he has followed them all, from his youth up, what else could he do, Mark tells us, "Jesus looked upon him and loved him." He saw the whole young man behind his naïve question: his yearning to be saved, his attachment to worldly goods and position. Out of love, he said the one thing the young man needed most and dreaded most to hear: go sell it all, give the money to the poor, and come follow me. "At that saying the young man’s countenance fell, and he went away sorrowful; for he had great possessions." Another tragic story.

It is possible to look upon things as if they were people. The Rich Young Man makes a Thou out of his money. It’s also possible to look upon people as things. Though he doesn’t realize it, Thord makes an It out of his son. For Thord, the son is an object to manipulate for his own self-centered purposes. His son’s face is like a mirror: Thord looks at him and sees not another person but himself, the foremost man in the village. At the critical moment of the boys drowning, the son "looked long at his father." At that moment, finally, Thord saw him—and himself in a terrifying new light. That was the moment of transformation.

The desire for control always lies behind our tendency to treat other persons as objects. We can do it even to God. The need to conceptualize, to define, to categorize, to prove God’s existence—all that, Buber says, is idolatrous. In doing that to God, rather than simply submitting, we are trying to control God, to make him an It. No one thinks he has to prove the existence of a friend!

The problem is words. Sometimes presence is more important than words. Job’s three friends had the right idea, at least at first. When they came to comfort Job, "they sat with him on the ground seven days and seven nights, and no one spoke a word to him, for they saw that his suffering was very great." I recall the story of the old peasant who, no longer able to work, used to sit in church for hours on end, day after day, just looking at the crucifix over the altar. When asked what he was doing, he said, "I look at him, he looks at me, and we are here together." Presence is a good synonym for prayer.

If Josh was helped, perhaps it was God’s presence rather than my inadequate words that did it. Buber says that no real "I-Thou" meeting ever takes place between persons in which God is not present. To know another person reveals that there is a third who stands behind each, making it possible for them to meet and thus to meet him. When Josh looked at me—I’ll call him by his right name now—when Y’shua looked at me and asked that question, I was being challenged—not only to listen and respond, but to reach out in responsibility to a fellow human being in a way that shook me deeply. Behind the question, as behind a veil, was the frightening but comforting statement, "I know you, what you are." I was being recognized and forgiven for what I was, and invited to become what I could become. So are we all in the eyes of Christ.

This essay was written as an inspirational speech by David Nicholson, delivered at Mariandale Center, Ossining, N.Y., in August 1990